Monday, March 23, 2020

“Mink aren't typically found up trees, but they're known to climb when they're startled, as was likely the case in the picture below”.............”So what was this mink up to (other than a tree)?”...........“Perhaps it was looking for romance”...........“It's mating season for the animals, and they range widely during this time”..........”Kits will be born in late spring”..........”Minks travel on land and in the water”.........“They walk, run, and bound on land, and may attain speed of 13 km/hr (8 mph) for brief periods”............”This semiaquatic species swims on the surface and underwater, covering as much as 15 m (50 ft) or more when submerged”........”A mink may remain in its den for several days after severe winter storms, but otherwise is active throughout the year”.............“Much activity occurs at twilight and at night, but it is not unusual for a mink to forage during the day in winter and while caring for young”..........”Minks are carnivores, preying on muskrats, chipmunks, mice, rabbits, fish, snakes, frogs and water fowl”........”Leftovers from a kill are often kept in the mink's den for later”

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by Northern Woodlands March 19, 2020 0 Comments by Northern Woodlands March 19, 2020 0  ...
4 comments:
Saturday, March 21, 2020

“Often, dozens of snakes of different species will share winter dens, called hibernacula”..........”In the den, snakes enter a state of hibernation, with their body temperature dropping to between 35 and 45 degrees”.............“Congregating like this helps snakes retain moisture”.........”Group denning also facilitates springtime mating for some species”..........“As snakes do not eat once their internal temperatures reach 60 degrees, a milk snake Will not kill a garter snake(which happens during the warm weather months)”............“Snakes will appropriate dens created by woodchucks, chipmunks, and other animals”.........”They’ll also use human-made structures like stone walls, cisterns, and building foundations”..............“Some species, like the timber rattlesnake, seek out rocky crevices and talus slopes with a southern exposure”...........”The rocks warm quickly in the sun and retain heat well after dusk, providing a relatively temperate environment, even in winter”

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http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001edFa3v48RNUJOMvvARLvMepMBf_1CyGSksE2gR4_Il-aUJ3Qq8hM6FqEwO7CAXQFg6Zag2UuCqDaAOSG-irQgq0m1TfAorKWKjGq4Gzh_ENr...
4 comments:
Sunday, March 15, 2020

“Recently, the Idaho Fish and Game changed its rules to allow any hunter or trapper to kill up to 30 wolves per year”............“And the state is considering a proposal to open much of the state to year-round wolf killing”.............“In Montana, the MDFWP is discussing increases from 5 to 10 wolf tags for some parts of the state”...........”The one take-home message from these actions is that the prediction that once the states were given management of wolves, we would see a rational, biologically informed management is inaccurate”..........“The old bias against predators is based more on a cultural attitude as any scientific value”

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https://www.thewildlifenews.com/2020/02/07/wolf-opposition-is-part-of-the-cultural-war/ Wolf Opposition Is Part Of The Cultura...
11 comments:
Friday, March 13, 2020

"Keeping cats indoors could blunt adverse effects to wildlife"............."Some estimates show that cats in North America kill from 10 to 30 billion wildlife animals per year"..........."They often have a two- to 10-time larger impact on wildlife than wild predators—a striking effect".............."A new North Carolina State and North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences study shows that hunting by house cats can have big effects on local animal populations because they kill more prey in a given area than similar-sized wild predators"............."The study showed that house cats killed an average of 14.2 to 38.9 prey per 100 acres, or hectare, per year"............."This effect is mostly concentrated relatively close to a pet cat's home, since most of their movement is in a 100-meter radius of their homes, usually encompassing a few of their neighborhood's yards on either side"

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https://phys.org/news/2020-03-cats-indoors-blunt-adverse-effects.html view video--https://youtu.be/SYJATBgQlY0 MARCH 11, 2020 Kee...
Friday, March 6, 2020

"As ectotherms, frogs’ core body temperature rises and falls with that of their surroundings"............... "So when outside temps drop below 32 degrees, they need to either avoid the cold or learn to live with it".............. "Most amphibians opt for freeze-avoidance, either by burrowing below the frost line (woodland salamanders) or by overwintering on the ice-free bottoms of lakes and streams (stream salamanders and aquatic frogs)"............"While freeze-avoidant frogs eke out an existence beneath the ice, freeze-tolerant species wait out winter as living ice cubes"............."In the eastern woodlands, gray tree frogs, spring peepers and wood frogs all possess this superpower"........."When the cold descends, the frogs mobilize glycogen from their livers".............."The glycogen converts to glucose, which serves as a natural antifreeze, lowering the temperature at which internal ice crystals can form".................."Eventually, the frogs’ hearts stop beating, their lungs stop breathing, and up to 65 percent of the water in their bodies freezes solid"..............."During this time, the frogs have no detectable brain activity".............."When spring arrives, they thaw in as few as four hours, though it takes about a day for them to fully rouse"

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http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001Bt7_jnb0zwyuQ2wwVMKA8F2Og6-Vo8spNBCHRbPmVck5xtvFEYY1WC__xGio_8Pgt4505tkVpFVZlXYy42PktoyoFYnD78v3vlWU14w0vNomN...
Friday, February 28, 2020

"The Great Dying of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas resulted in a human-driven global impact on the Earth System in the two centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution"............."The arrival of Europeans in the Americas in 1492 CE marks the onset of disease epidemics resulting in the loss of up to 90% of indigenous people living in the Americas over the subsequent century"............"There is wide agreement about the effects of diseases and epidemics associated with European contact".............."The first well-documented, widespread epidemic in what was to become New Mexico was smallpox in 1636"..............."Shortly thereafter, measles entered the area, and many Pueblos lost as many as a quarter of their inhabitants"................."After the founding of Spanish settlements and missions, there was substantially more contact, and throughout the 17th century, epidemic disease was repeatedly imported"................"It should be noted that Osteologic data demonstrate that native groups were most definitely not living in a pristine, disease-free environment before contact".........."Diseases such as treponemiasis and tuberculosis were already present in the New World, along with diseases such as tularemia, giardia, rabies, amebic dysentery, hepatitis, herpes, pertussis, and poliomyelitis, although the prevalence of almost all of these was probably low in any given group"............."Old World diseases that were not present in the Americas until contact include bubonic plague, measles, smallpox, mumps, chickenpox, influenza, cholera, diphtheria, typhus, malaria, leprosy, and yellow fever"............. "Indians in the Americas had no acquired immunity to these infectious diseases"..............."Europeans began to colonize North America (defined here as the United States of America and Canada) after Central and South America, thus regional and continent wide estimates are largely based on archaeological evidence, tribe-by-tribe counts and environmental carrying capacities"............ "The lower range of population estimates for North America lies between 900,000 and 2.4 million, based on tribe-by-tribe counts for the period 1600 CE to mid-1800 CE"..............."The highest estimate of 18 million, established from analyzing environmental carrying capacities, has been criticized for its assumptions on food acquisition strategies".............."More recent estimates derived from geospatial interpolation of archaeological sites range between 2.8 million and 5.7 million"................."These intermediate figures are supported by a recent comprehensive regional-scale archaeological study"

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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379118307261 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071659/ Earth sys...